A Crowded Marriage by Catherine Alliott Page A

I think she’d found it easy to confide in me because I didn’t mix with her elevated social set and wasn’t likely to spill any beans, and I…well, I just liked her. What had started as a convenient friendship to do mainly with proximity had blossomed into something rare and precious to do with compatibility.
    She got up quickly from the table to save us both from a nasty scene and went for the dustpan and brush in the broom cupboard.
    â€œBloody peas,” she muttered, brushing them rather ineptly into the pan. She threw them in the bin.
    â€œYou’ve thrown the dustpan in too,” I commented.
    â€œWhat? Oh.” She retrieved it absently and slung it in the cupboard. Then she turned and folded her arms, regarding me beadily like someone looking into the eye of a storm.
    â€œI can’t help feeling you’re panicking. That this is crisis management.”
    â€œOh, we are,” I agreed. “And it is. A crisis, I mean. And if we have any chance of saving ourselves we have to move fast. We’re going under here, Kate, sinking well below the surface. Eleanor’s offer is a lifeline.”
    â€œEleanor,” she spat, opening the fridge door to get some salad out for lunch. “I thought you couldn’t bear her! Thought you reckoned she still had her claws into Alex and was just waiting for her chance to pounce. Well, now you’re offering it to her on a plate!” She tossed a cucumber and a pepper on a chopping board. “She’ll be all over him like a rash!”
    â€œI think I’ve overreacted,” I mumbled, chewing a fingernail. “In fact, I’m sure I have. Eleanor, is, in actual fact, a very sweet person.”
    â€œBollocks,” Kate scoffed, chopping up the cucumber with alarming zeal. “Last week you told me she was a conniving hussy who’d married for money and was regretting it on a daily basis. You told me she was thoroughly disillusioned with chinless Piers and looking for some extracurricular action with her eyes firmly on your husband!”
    â€œI did not,” I spluttered, colouring up. “I mean—I—I certainly remember saying that if you marry money you pay for it, but I’m pretty sure I was generalising. I really don’t think for one moment she’s after Alex.”
    Kate turned and waved her knife dangerously at me. “You said, the last time you went to stay with them, she practically got her tits out at the dinner table. You said it was a black tie event for twenty with a magician doing the after-dinner entertainment and she might just as well have done the juggling herself.”
    â€œ Did I?” I was horrified. “God, how awful. I’m such a cow. No, no, she looked lovely that evening. Just a bit—you know. Chilly.”
    â€œAnd you said that when you walked into the billiards room after coffee she was bending over the table with Alex bending over behind her showing her how to pot the red. You reckoned he’d have been potting something else if you’d come in two minutes later.”
    â€œYes, but I misinterpreted that,” I said quickly. “Alex explained to me in the car on the way home, it’s a bit of a running joke with them. He’s always tried to teach her billiards, ever since they were little, and she’s always been hopeless.”
    â€œEver since they were little,” Kate scoffed. “Ever since they were little and he was the land agent’s son and she was the farmer’s daughter and they went to Pony Club together and grew up in each other’s houses. He plays on that as if that excuses their overfamiliarity.” She stopped suddenly. Saw my face. Went a bit pink. “Sorry. That was out of order. I didn’t mean…well, I’m sure you’re right. You misinterpreted it. And I’m just upset.”
    I got up and we met in the middle of the kitchen, hugged each other tight.
    â€œI’m